w797 – The Collection of Game Post

We recently reported that World of Warcraft’s annual “Midsummer Fire Festival” is now officially upon us, and there’s no doubt many players will want to hit the ground running. If you’ve been trying to complete all the holiday achievements with the hopes of completing the “What a Long, Strange Trip it’s Been” meta-achievement so you can score that coveted Violet Proto-Drake, you might be interested in checking out the 2009 Midsummer Fire Festival Guide just released by our sister site, Wowhead.

Having a tough time juggling those fire torches? Don’t know what to do with those Burning Blossoms? Wondering how to most efficiently extinguish all those braziers? (Or maybe you’re just confused and wondering what ladies’ undergarments could possibly have to do with the holiday?) Don’t worry; you’ve got all the way until July 5 to get it all done, and Wowhead’s got you covered every step of the way.

According to a post by Bornakk on the official forums, the rusted and ironbound proto-drake rewards for the Glory of the Ulduar Raider meta achievements will be removed in the future, possibly with the release of patch 3.2. Whenever the team decides to remove the mounts, they will provide about one month of warning so players can try to complete the achievements one last time.

So why are the proto-drake rewards disappearing? Well, Bornakk said the mounts are meant to be rewards for the top tier of raiders, and the introduction of new and more powerful equipment into the game will make the completion of the meta achievements “easier than intended.”

Bornakk also said the team plans to continue removing similar rewards in the future. So basically, once a high-end reward becomes too easy to get, it can no longer be obtained. You can read the full announcement below.

The rusted and ironbound proto-drake rewards for the normal and heroic Glory of the Ulduar Raider meta achievements will be removed at a future date. We currently do not have an exact date they will be taken out, but it is possible they will be removed when patch 3.2 comes out or at some point after that. When we do decide to remove these mounts we will provide about 1 month of warning so players will have time to make some final attempts.

These mounts are designed similar to the Arena Gladiator mounts as rewards for the top tier of raiders and we will remove the rewards once we have introduced enough new and more powerful equipment to make the completion of these achievements easier than originally intended. Since these rewards are designed for such high-end game play, we currently plan to continue removing any similar rewards we make available in the future.

The official European World of Warcraft Web site has been updated with a new under development page for the Crusaders’ Coliseum. While information on this upcoming raid was released on the official U.S. forums last week, the European page does includes some new details, including confirmation its setup is similar to the Ring of Blood quest line. You’ll have to keep defeating bosses to move onto the next one.

To try out the Heroic mode, you’re going to need to beat either the 10-man or 25-man normal modes first. You’ll only have a limited number of attempts in hard mode for each raid lockout period, so wipes will be more costly. “After you have dealt the killing blow to the coliseum’s final heroic mode boss will you be able to collect the Crusaders’ Tribute, and the fewer attempts you needed to complete the Trial of the Grand Crusader, the better your reward will be.”

According to the under development page, you’ll face a magnataur and two jormungar wyrms for your first challenge. You’ll also have to fight members of the Scourge.

Horde and Alliance flavors of Mtn Dew Game Fuel are now in stores across the US. You many have seen the TV commercial featuring some epic grocery store PvP action, and it’s now available for online viewing as a Web-exclusive version.
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This year, for the first time, you’ll have the opportunity to enjoy a live Internet stream of BlizzCon coverage from the comfort of your own home. The stream includes the same content as the DIRECTV pay-per-view event, but you do not have to be a DIRECTV subscriber to purchase it. It consists of over 16 hours of video, including interviews and commentary, main stage presentations, and tournament coverage. It’s now available to order for $39.95, and purchasers will also receive the BlizzCon 2009-exclusive in-game pet, Grunty the Murloc Marine (not available in all regions). Head over to the to get more information, to test video playback on your system, or to place an order.

Today we continue our class Q&A series with Greg “Ghostcrawler” Street and the development team, in which we’re taking a look at each class and answering some of the top questions brought forward by their communities. Next up, we take a look at the most asked questions from the death knight class and find out more about the design philosophy behind the first Hero class, the expectations for the class, and what may lie in store for it in the future.

Be sure to read the .

We’ve created a new with 15 of the best player submissions of the . As always, if you’d like to contribute to our galleries, please . You can view all of our screenshot galleries .

As of today, FigurePrints is expanding their services to offer limited-edition pets to go along with their custom character statues, and manufactured using the same high-tech 3D printing process. To begin with, three pets are available: Clockwork Rocket Bot, Speedy the turtle, and Stinky the skunk. These pets are only available until July 31, after which they will not be produced again. You can purchase them individually for $29.95 or get the whole set for $74.85, and with any FigurePets order, you’ll also earn a 10% discount on a FigurePrints character statue. For more information or to place an order, head over to .

News is flooding in that Exodus of Ysondre-US has just scored the world first 25-man Yogg-Saron with 0 Keepers, a.k.a. Heroic: Alone in the Darkness. A quick look at their site proves it to be true, complete with screenshots.

This achievement, when Ulduar was first launched, was largely considered to be mathematically impossible. One or two nerfs to Yogg-Saron more or less proved that to be true. The recent nerf to the spawnrate of the Guardians of Yogg-Saron wasn’t aimed at the encounter with 4 Keepers up. It was aimed at the encounter with few (or zero) Keepers up. Without the buffs those Keepers provide, the encounter gets more and more difficult. As someone who has only killed Yogg-Saron with all 4 Keepers in the last few weeks, I fear seeing the fight with zero. Major, major props to Exodus.

They were rewarded for their efforts with Bowser’s Flying Machine Mimiron’s Head. I guess he didn’t need it anymore. Congratulations, Exodus!

Filed under: Raiding, Achievements

Exodus scores world first Heroic: Alone in the Darkness originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’ve heard this argument before, and every time Blizzard makes a change to help players complete quests more quickly, it comes up again. And with the recent announcement that Blizzard will actually be adding quest targets to the ingame maps (again replicating another function of the popular Questhelper addon), players have again brought up the old argument: is the game too dumbed-down? Originally, when the game began (though I don’t know anyone that didn’t still use Wowhead to find quest coordinates even back then), you were sent “east” to find a tiny little brown backpack to click on, and in the next patch, not only will you see that brown backpack sparkling with flares as you get close, but you’ll have it marked on your map the entire time.

Larisa waxes nostalgic over at the Pink Pigtail Inn, and says that this is just farther down a sliding slope that leads to a ravine where we all just have two spells and need to kill three boars to level to 100. Kinless Chronicles straight out says “Patch 3.2 will play for you” with some funny tongue-in-cheek analysis. But since I do it so much anyway, I’ll play the Devil’s advocate here: let’s face it, we all used the addons and coordinates while leveling up alts, if not even while leveling mains. It’s easy to be nostalgic, but I never did like hunting around for that little pixel of brown you had to click on to finish a quest, and if you really do want to stumble around in the dark the old way, just don’t look at your map and/or close the minimap down. I’ve recently played two other console games, Fable 2 and Dead Space, that also offer glowing line navigation straight to your quest targets, and I did feel a sense of exploration in both — if I wanted to wander off the path, I was welcome to (and usually rewarded for it), while if I just wanted to get to where I was going, I could do that, too.

Continue reading Exploring Azeroth with quest icons on the map

Filed under: Patches, Items, Analysis / Opinion, How-tos, Blizzard, Quests

Exploring Azeroth with quest icons on the map originally appeared on WoW.com on Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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